The most popular way of preparing hams in meat processing plants today is to separate the ham muscle at the membrane line between the muscles, remove the membrane from the surface of the muscles, and then reassemble the muscles into one large piece of ham that has no membrane therein. As the muscles are separated, the membrane between them is left on the side of one muscle or the other, and conventional skinning machines are the most practical for removing the membrane. Consequently, a plurality of small chunks of ham that have membrane irregularly spread over their surfaces need to be fed through the skinning machine. One of the problems of this process is that these chunks of ham with irregular patches of membrane may need to be fed through the machine more than once to remove all of the patches of membrane. Reaching across the skinner to retrieve a chunk of ham for another pass can be dangerous to the operator. Consequently, several conveyor means have been developed to convey the chunks back to the front of the machine so that they can be fed back through the machine to remove membranes from other surfaces on the chunk. This avoids reaching across the machine, but often results in both sides of the chunk being skinned automatically, whether it needs it or not. This causes wastage of the ham meat and reduces the net yield of the meat product.
For the last fifty years, skinning machines have had the skinning blade on the top of the tooth or gripper roll and with a horizontal table or surface to hand feed the product horizontally into the blade and across the top of the machine.
It is therefore a principal object of this invention to provide a method and means for removing skin or membrane from ham chunks which will cause the ham chunks to immediately return to the point of beginning to have other surfaces thereon skinned by means of a curved deflector plate located immediately beyond the skinning blade of the skinning machine.
A further object of this invention is to provide a method and means for removing skin or membrane from ham chunks which is safe to operate, and which will serve to produce a higher yield on the meat product being skinned.
These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.